January 04, 2007
Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno. How could it be bad?
'The Da Vinci Code' was a fun, light read - a throw-away airport novel that became unexplainably successful.
The movie has a great cast and director. Unfortunately, it proved far less than the sum of its parts.
The puzzles throughout (all in English, of course), are largely codes of the scrambled-anagram variety, ones most often solved by ten year olds on long car trips. Howard, somewhat heavy handedly, recycles an element from 'A Beautiful Mind' (which he also directed) and has the letters glow as Langdon (Hanks) rapidly deciphers them.
Hanks and Tautou lack any form of chemistry, whilst the script writer omitted character development. Reno and McKellen supply charisma and accents in equal measure, though it feels as though McKellen is the only one to recognize the innate absurdity of the screenplay, and camps it up accordingly. Happily for him, he has all the best lines.
The most memorable line of the film is also the worst:
Langdon: "You’re the last living descendant of Jesus Christ"
In all, it appears to be an abridged version of a book that was decidedly simple to begin with.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 10:20 AM
May 18, 2006
The Elephants Dream
The Elephant's Dream has been released as...
the world’s first open movie, made entirely with open source graphics software such as Blender, and with all production files freely available to use however you please, under a Creative Commons license.
As a confessed animation junkie (who also likes the idea of open source), this is fantastic. The score, the animation files, and, of course, the movie, are available at The Elephant's Dream, for use, reuse and otherwise learning from.
The site is being slightly overwhelmed by traffic at the moment, but refreshing will eventually load the page.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 04:07 PM
May 05, 2006
When advertising companies fail to think.
From CNS News - Mission Illogical: Movie Promotion Puts Lives 'at Risk'
A musical promotion for Paramount Pictures' upcoming movie, "Mission: Impossible III" was designed to turn the "everyday news rack experience" into an "extraordinary mission."
I always have reservations when advertising (or web design companies) talk about 'enhancing the user experience'.
The plan was to conceal digital audio players in 4,500 randomly selected newspaper boxes around Los Angeles and Ventura County. When newspaper buyers opened the racks, the six inch long, two-and-a-half inch wide red plastic boxes -- connected to activator switches on the news rack doors -- would play the easily-recognizable "Mission: Impossible" theme song.
An unidentifiable red device connected by wires (red-black-white) to the door of a news rack. What could go wrong?
One newspaper buyer saw the device and switch, thought it was a bomb and called authorities. After an inspection of the newspaper rack could not determine whether the device was explosive, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department bomb squad blew up the newspaper rack.
All the advertising people together now, hum along: Dumb, dumb, dumb, dum-dum...
But what about the lives at risk? After one was discovered inside the lobby of a veteran's hospital, 300 people were evacuated and doctors were not allowed to enter to treat patients.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:54 AM
October 06, 2005
Trailers can be misleading.
Brett Meisner had a lot of spare time and came up with a very, very misleading trailer. For the Shining.
Makes it look like a movie to see on a first date.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 01:05 PM